Blog

Last Thursday, 11 December we hosted our last event of the year, and it just so happened to be an evening with two CG masters; an event for current students, our very own graduates and VFX enthusiasts to gain an insight into the industry from professionals themselves. If you missed out, don’t worry, we hope to be running more in the New Year so make sure you sign up to avoid disappointment!

On Friday 5 December, we visited Aardman Animations to celebrate the graduation of 11 students on a 12-week Character Animation course. Now in it’s second year, the course in a collaboration between NFTS, Creative Skillset and Aardman. The mission? The provide animation training that is industry focused and addresses the skills gap for animators in the UK. And from what we saw on Friday, this is just our kind of animation course - the kind where students are supported in realising their career ambition, towards getting a job after they graduate.

You’ve been talking about it, your friends have been talking about it, your friends’ friends have been talking about it, hell I even heard the milkman talking about it the other day, and now the date is finally here. That’s right, it’s time for you to start preparing for the VFX Festival 2015.

If you’re in the business of creative careers, then it’s likely you’ll be aware of Creative Skillset, an organisation that aims to plug skills gaps, identify funding needs, and train, develop and nurture people within creative industries.

Anita, Vania and I were at VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy last week, and on Wednesday I hosted a NUKE Taster day style workshop for a packed house of 35 students. Most attendees came from 3 surrounding animation art schools within the arts centre in central Turin. After the session I had lunch with some of them and discovered that in their foundation year they are learning traditional animation, 3D and filmmaking, then specialising afterwards in 2D or 3D animation for their final project.

At the end of this month (29th September to be exact), starts Escape’s very first dedicated Motion Graphics course – a 12 week (part time) evening course for creative folk who want to take their digital designs to new heights. And with an internship at CAKE up for grabs, this course is launching its graduates into the industry, firing on all cylinders!

During my five days at SIGGRAPH, one of the escapees i happened to bump into was Iveth Bueno, from my Compositing for Visual Effects class in 2013, she kindly wrote a blog for us about her experience as a SIGGRAPH 2014 volunteer!

This time of year tends to be a busy time for VFX, particularly for Compositing departments, with film production schedules nearing the end of their pipeline, and VFX teams working towards looming delivery deadlines. During this busy time, it’s great to see our graduates benefitting from the industry’s demand for more experienced Compositors. This is certainly the case for Jacopo Landi who graduated from our Advanced Compositing for VFX course last March and is now working at Double Negative as a Digital Stereo Compositor.

You may have read that our main man Ash Miles was invited to the private cast and crew screening of Guardians of the Galaxy last weekend, and went along with a number of Escape graduates from MPC who worked on the project. His blog about it got us so excited that we had to get in touch with Adam Dewhirst, escapee and advisory board member who happened to be Framestore's Lead Modeller on the film, to ask a few questions, he was careful not to discuss any spoilers with us so read all about the project below in peace, and discover what it’s like to work on what is soon to be a truly iconic motion picture.

It’s been an exciting time for students here at Escape. Over the last year we’ve been approached by a number of productions seeking assistance on projects in need of VFX talent. “Through the Breaking Glass” is one such project, officially selected for the 20th Palm Springs International ShortFest.

Our VFX training is all about giving students hands-on practical training, and for the students who worked on this film, that’s exactly what they got… as well as some awesome shots for their showreel.

In fact, many of the students who worked on this project are now working at major VFX companies in London – no doubt the result of being able to work on such impressive back plates.

At the helm of the project is VFX Compositor and Director Iván Mena Tinoco, with an international crew of artists, techies and entrepreneurs. Together they set out to tell a ‘larger than life’ story inspired by Lewis Carroll’s books “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass”.

The film tells us a new not yet seen chapter of Alice. Iván’s vision was ambitious, but his background in VFX allowed him to innovate along the way. Facing the challenge head-on, this team of filmmakers have created something visually stunning. Check out the trailer >>

Having started his career in VFX, Iván met our students understanding exactly what they are capable of – welcoming them on board as valued members of the team. Being their first commercial project, our students did an incredible job contributing to the effects on this film.

And we’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who worked on this project, as the film has just had it’s world premiere and won THE HONORABLE MENTION of The Jury at Palm Springs International Film Festival & ShortFest.

The production team are going to be at Palm Springs throughout the whole festival. If you want to keep up with how they’re getting on, you can follow them via their Facebook and Twitter.

The last couple of months have been really exciting for the VFX community here in London. The industry is incredibly busy, and not only that, but our compositing graduates are in high demand. Turns out, with all the work in town at the moment, skilled Compositors are hard to come by.

We are very pleased to announce that we have joined forces with HaZ Films as VFX Partner on his latest Sci-Fi Short film: SYNC. HaZ is a VFX Supervisor turned Filmmaker while also one of our tutors on the Producing for VFX course, (which is soon to start its third term)

VanArts and Pixar Animation Studios are coming to London for a 3 day event this coming August, offering you a fantastic opportunity to learn from a Pixar Story Artist, Pixar Art Designer and Pixar Animator.

Last week was super busy for everyone here at Escape Studios, as we crammed in a heck of a lot of VFX related activities, we visited and hosted some of the most skilled artists in the business and simply had to blog about it!

It’s fair to say that we’re well known amongst the VFX community for our top quality online VFX content. When it comes to educating yourself in the realms of VFX, Escape Studios YouTube/VLE (Virtual Learning System) will more often than not be on your list of first stop offs for online tips.